Black Idioms

Several words have found themselves used in a number of phrases. We looked at 'bean' last time and this time it's 'black'.

Black market, the retailer who ignores official procedure, is not seen until 1935 when it was a noun. The adjective followed in 1935, but not until rationing during the Second World War did it achieve any kind of popularity.

Black leg when referring to strike breakers is not seen until 1865, but had been used since at least 1771 to refer to a ‘swindler’, particularly those involved in equestrian events.

Black drop, first seen in 1823, was a liquid preparation of opium used for medicinal purposes.

Black magic is first seen around 1300, this a natural progression as the colour was associated with anything considered sinful or sorrowful.

Black flag is first seen in 1590, a reference to a flag flown by those (such as pirates) who would show no mercy. So nice of them to tell us, don’t you think?

Black dog, first seen in 1826, is used as an adjective to mean ‘melancholy’.

Black belt, in the judo sense, is not seen until 1913. It is also used in the USA to describe the fertility of the soil.

Black and white, not the colours but a reference to something in print, is first seen in the 1650s. Now a printing reference came about before this and, from 1590, the phrase was reversed in ‘white and black’.

In the black, ie not in debt, is not found until 1922. The idea being any positive figure would appear in black and negative values (debt) in red.

Black eye has had three uses over the years, these uses having overlapped. The discolouration of the eye following injury dates from around 1600; a reference to an injury to one’s pride from 1744; and to refer to one with a bad reputation from 1880s.

Black-eyed Susan, any of several species of flower, first recorded in 1881. Note it was also the title of a poem by the early 18th century poet John Gay; and a popular 19th century British stage play.

Black swan is a fairly popular pub name and often depicts the bird native to Australia and New Zealand. Yet despite James Cook not landing in Australia until 1770, prior to which one of the requirements of being classified a swan was to be white, the phrase (and pub names) had existed since at least the early 14th century, more than four centuries before Cook was even born. This is because it had been used as a description of anything extremely rare or non-existent – in Latin rara avis, and is why the image appears on heraldic symbols. Note, ‘white crow’ and ‘blue dahlia’ were also used in the same context and for the same reason – I look forward to a pint in the White Crow.

Lamp black is a pigment (or ink) named as it was original gathered from the soot produced in oil lamps.

Black light is light beyond the visible spectrum, and first coined in 1927.

Black tie may have been worn before its first record of 1848, but is not used as a description for dress code until 1933.

Black hearted, describing one who is inherently cruel or malicious, first appears in 1792.

Black Hills in South Dakota – Doris Day once sang about wanting to be taken back to them – is a place name coming from Lakhota paha –sapa as the heavily forested sides of the hills appear dark from a distance.

Black Shirts is first adopted as the name of the Italian paramilitary unit founded by Mussolini in 1922, albeit this three years after their founding. It is simply a reference to the colour of their uniform.

Blackball is to exclude (usually by voting). First seen in 1770, it refers to exclusion by a secret ballot.

Blacklist, names of those excluded or banned from something, appears as early as 1610, and had been inferred to more than twenty years earlier still in someone being ‘black booked’.

Blackout was first used in 1908 in referring to a darkened stage. The sense ‘loss of memory’ dates from 1934; ‘extinguishing lights in an air raid’ in 1935; and as early as 1888 to refer to blacked out information in a written document because deemed objectionable, sensitive, or secret.

Blackguard’s origins are unclear, but we do know it appears in writing in the 1530s when it was used to mean ‘scoundrel’. Not until 1736 did it have the modern sense of ‘criminal, coarse person’.

Black comedy has certainly been around for centuries, but was not described as such before 1961. Prior to that the term used would be gallows humour, seen since the 19th century, and the change may have been inspired by the French expression comedie noire, first recorded in 1958, although the French ‘black comedy’ referred to a ‘macabre or farcical rendering of a violent or tragic theme’.

Blackmail is first recorded around 1550 – the term from Old English mal and Middle English male meaning ‘lawsuit’ – and originally referred to money (or goods) paid in what would today be seen as a protection racket. The modern sense of ‘blackmail’ is not seen until 1826. It is also worthwhile mentioning the sixteenth century terms ‘silver mail’, rent paid in money rather than in goods, and the indiscretion resulting in a fine for fornication known as ‘buttock mail’.

Black hole first appears in 1968 in a paper on astrophysics. It is often said the original series of Star Trek is the first use of the term ‘black hole’, but this is not the case – in the episode entitled The Arena, first broadcast in January 1967, the term used in ‘black planet’, which is clear, in the context of the story, not the same thing. The term may have been inspired by the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta of 19 June 1756, when the Newab of Bengal retaliated against the British capturing Fort William by imprisoning 146 British Prisoners of War in a punishment cell overnight. That cell was designed to hold just four individuals and only 23 were alive when released.

Black coffee was certainly drunk before 1796, but is not referred to as such before then. Note, the sense of ‘black’ coffee is not thought to have referred to coffee without milk (or cream) but with nothing added at all.

That was not what I meant. (C)

Having started looking at words which have changed meaning - using 'it sucks' and 'it blows' in modern vernacular means the same thing - we shall continue with the next letter:

Career is not only used to mean one's chosen employment, but also used to mean 'rushing'. Although 'careering about' is now a rather dated phrase, it does show how it came from horsemanship. In the sixteenth century both 'horseracing' and 'galloping at top speed' were both likely to be described as 'careering'.

Chimneys may be a thing of yesteryear, albeit all gas appliances need a flue, but the original use referred to the fireplace, and not that above it. It came to English from the French in the fourteenth century.

Chuckle today means a quiet laugh, most often chuckling to oneself. Historically, it was still laughing, but what we would term a 'guffaw'. The change, and we have no real explanation as to how it changed, came about around 1800, about fifty years after Dr Johnson's dictionary defined it as 'laugh vehemently'.

Climax speaks of the high point, the best or most important moment. It came to English as a Greek word meaning 'ladder'. Another Greek word 'clue', originally meant 'ball of string'. The 'clue' in the ball of string was how Theseus found his way out of the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur.

Coast, as in shoreline, originally meant 'flank, side'. It is easy to see how one sense became the other.

Coax may mean 'to encourage' today, but when it first appeared in the sixteenth century it was used to mean 'fool, deceive'.

Cockney, to be a true cockney one must have been born within the sound of Bow Bells, once had a very different meaning. In the fourteenth century it referred to a small and misshapen hen's egg. It was also used to mean 'spoilt child' or 'milksop'.

Comedy is used to refer to an amusing performance, but in the fourteenth century it referred to any poem which didn't have a dismal ending.

Complexion refers to the colouring and texture of the facial skin. Originating in the Latin complex or 'combination', it has given us meanings such as 'weave' and also, for those who recall such things, the four humours of blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, on which medicine was based.

Cope, meaning to manage today, once had a very different meaning and spoke of those 'coming to blows'.

Croon may be a somewhat dated expression today, the crooners were the music sensations of their day in the thirties and forties, but earlier still 'to croon' was to 'murmur, hum' in the eighteenth century, and four hundred years earlier spoke of one who would 'bellow, roar'.

Crowd used to mean 'press on, push' in the fourteenth century.

George Farquhar

A plaque on the George Hotel in Swan Street, Lichfield tells us this was where George Farquahar lived whilst in service as a lieutenant of grenadiers in 1705. He was recruiting troops and later immortalised the place in his comedy The Beau Strategies. More about that comedy can be found in my Coaching Routes of Staffordshire.

Farqhar, an Irish dramatist born in 1677, also penned The Recruiting Officer the previous year. Farquhar died on 29th April 1707, just 52 days after The Beau Strategies' premiere.

Search for the Oldest Joke

In writing about the origins of place names I often come across examples of names clearly transferred from elsewhere around the world. Among the most common are Botany Bay, New Zealand, California and even World’s End. Clearly these cannot have been named before the more famous examples and were probably suggested as those places were in the news at the time.

These are known as remoteness names, not a direct reference to the other side of the world (as in the case of Botany Bay) but a name coined for the far corner of the parish. In times when virtually everyone earned their living from the land, there were times when that patch of land at the extremity of the parish required tilling, sowing or reaping, and some unfortunate fellow had to walk there and back each day. He would have joked about it being at the other side of the world and eventually the name stuck.

There are also streets named Zig Zag Lane and similar. Whilst some do indeed have significant bends there examples where the road is as straight as any Roman road and, once again, this has been named by some wit who thought it quite inappropriate.

Doubtless these examples will have been the source of great guffaws of laughter at one time. Today they might raise a small smile at best. The question of why is undoubtedly because humour changes over time, and a remarkably short period of time, too.

The examples of place name humour is only about three hundred years old at most. More recently our grandparents or perhaps great-grandparents will have found Charlie Chaplin and similar silent screen stars hilarious – yet this slapstick will hardly amuse anyone today. When the talkies arrived it meant humour did not have to be visual. In the classic musical Singing in the Rain we see how a silent movie star’s voice ruined her career when the audience could really hear her rather than read her words on screen.

Later radio shows saw comedy actors play regular roles and the development of the catchphrase. We also saw some apparently ‘classic’ comedy routines on the big screen, thereafter television introduced other forms of comedy including Monty Python, The Young Ones and Morecambe and Wise.

From a personal viewpoint I never have understood just why Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on first” routine was amusing. I’m sure Charlie Drake and Dickie Henderson must have amused many during the 1960s, although I never met anyone who admitted such. Mike Yarwood’s impressions were once primetime television in the UK. And remember that ‘bear’ on The Andy Williams Show always demanding milk and cookies? Did you laugh? I didn’t.

Having said that I still find reruns of The Goons and Round the Horne on radio compulsive listening. The improvisational talents of Colin Mochrie and Ryan Styles are still of great amusement. While messrs Merton, Fry, Edmondson, Carrott, Connolly, Atkinson, et al can always be relied upon.

Hence clearly what is funny depends upon one’s era (there is also the cultural factor but that complicates things far too much). All this had me thinking about the earliest jokes. Would they be funny? Clearly these would have to be in written form. But would we even recognise these as a joke?

A little research uncovered three absolutely hilarious witticisms. Prepare to split your sides:

From the 1st century BC comes this little gem featuring Emperor Augustus who is touring a small part of his empire when he meets a man who bears an amazing likeness to himself. The emperor asks if his mother was ever in service at the palace? He replies “No, but my father was.”

From 1600BC and another from around the Mediterranean, this time it is the pharaohs of Egypt who are the target of the joke when the comedian asked “How do you entertain a bored pharaoh?” And answered himself with “Sail a boat full of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile – and urge the pharaoh to go fishing.”

Wet yourself yet? Thought not. Then perhaps the oldest known joke in the world, which must surely merit it being considered a classic through age alone, will have us all rolling in the aisles. It is not much earlier than the Egyptian offering, dating from around 1900 BC, and a Sumerian gag which is recorded thus: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.” You’d think we would have heard that as it is approaching 4,000 years old, although it is easy to see why we haven’t.

I also managed to find the oldest British joke. Found in a 10th-century book of Saxon poetry in Exeter Cathedral known as the Codex Exoniensis, the joke is in the form of a question and reads “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole it’s often poked before?” The answer is, of course, “A key.”

Perhaps it’s the way I tell them.